Thursday 31 December 2015

Growing Indoors vs. Outdoors: What's Better

Gardening, like most human activities, can be observed through a large spectrum of its variations and different subtypes. My experience tells me that expert growers often lack a consensus about the best way to grow a plant. Even though you’ll find different opinions on this important topic, there are some basic tips that everyone can use.


While trying to find out what’s better - growing indoors vs. outdoors - I was forced to put my knowledge on the subject to the test. I completed the search successfully and here are the results of my quest.


Indoor Growing Requirements

If you want to grow indoors the first step you must take is to set up the growing environment. Your growing option will consequently influence your budget. Or you can do it the other way around.

Decide how much money you are willing to spend on your indoor garden and then choose the growing system. Indoor growing systems can’t work without lights and nutrients. But unlike outdoor growing, they can work without soil.

The best soilless gardening solution is hydroponic gardening. It is fun, suitable for small apartments and not expensive. What you need to determine is whether you want to grow plants with the help of nutrient solutions or solid mediums.

Pros

When growing indoors, you have a head start over growing environment. Actually, you control it. This way Mother Nature is unable to ruin your ambitious gardening plans.

Indoor gardening is perfect for fresh gardening starters. One of the reasons for this statement are multiple harvests per year. Another advantage of indoors is shorter growing time.

Finally, let’s not forget the protection against theft. Naturally, you wouldn’t like somebody else to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Cons

Depending on your growing system, indoor gardening can have high startup costs. In comparison to outdoor gardening, indoor gardening also means that you share your living space with your plants. Are you willing to make that choice?

Maintenance, electricity costs and good ventilation are primary preconditions for indoor gardening. There’s also a question of limited indoor space, although it can be taken off the list of gardening problems with the help of little imagination.

Outdoor Growing Requirements

Almost any outdoor space can be planted. I prefer small, tidy compared to big, messy ones. You must have a water supply nearby.

Continuous presence of sunlight (6-8 hours per day) is essential for outdoor growing. At the end, note that every climate type demands some additional growing conditions.

Pros

Most gardeners agree that it’s a bit easier to start an outdoor garden. Plus, startup costs are lower. Also, outdoor garden usually produces higher yields than indoor crops. When growing outdoors, you can do it absolutely naturally.

Outdoor gardening is beneficial for your health and muscular tonus. Everyone agrees that being outside, on a fresh air, has no substitution.

Cons

You have to rely on the assumption that Mother Nature has a good day. Otherwise, your efforts may go to waste. Outdoor gardening usually involves longer harvest times.

According to my opinion, the greatest disadvantage of outdoor gardening are annoying pests such as mealy bugs and ants. It is easier to control pests indoors than outdoors.

At last, outdoor gardening is quite difficult in large cities due to limited outdoor garden space.

What’s your opinion on indoor vs. outdoor growing?



Wednesday 30 December 2015

Practical Gardening: Plants with No Ants

A few days ago I was surfing the Web and was amazed to find that there are more than 12,000 species of ants all over the world. Actually, I would say more than 12,001 species. That is, if you calculate the Atom Ant cartoon hero, created in 1965 by Hanna Barbera. This super ant possesses enormous strength and the ability to fly.


When I was a kid, I enjoyed watching this Superman-bug-counterpart and its adventures. Today when I am a bigger child I look at ants in a different light. Especially garden ants. Particularly garden ants that bother my plants.


Why Do Garden Ants Act in an Unreasonable Way?

Maybe the ants are angry at the whole world because everyone is bigger than them. And so they say – hey, let’s build a house and they create an anthill. After that they say – hey, let’s visit that garden to get some food and they come to see how your plants are doing.

There are several ways to keep ants off your veggies, fruits and flowers, but I prefer two – use of smells and plants that ants don’t like. The secret is to sprinkle or place mint or cinnamon flavored gum around the base of an affected plant.

Second option is to surround the affected plant with plants such as garlic, aster, calendula and mint. This will help to keep the ants away.

Keep in mind that pests like mealybugs demand a differentfighting strategy.

How to Reason with Ants

When I negotiate with ants I use herb and soap ant spray. This is how it goes – I put half a cup of tansy and half a cup of santolina leaves into 250 ml of boiled water.

After it gets cold and strained I stir in 1 tablespoon of liquid soap with 10 drops of vetiver oil. Before use, I politely ask my ants to leave my plants alone and if they still won’t cooperate then I give them a soapy shower to change their mind.